Page:Gospel of Buddha.djvu/282

 "Let us, then, revere the truth; let us inquire into the truth and state it, and let us obey the truth. For the truth is Buddha our Master, our Teacher, our Lord." And Kassapa rose and said: "Truly thou hast spoken well, O brother Anuraddha. Neither is there any conflict of opinion on the meaning of our religion, For the Blessed One possesses three personalities, and every one of them is of equal importance to us.

"There is the Dharma Kāya, There is the Nirmāna Kāya. There is the Sambhoga Kāya.

"Buddha is the all-excellent truth, eternal, omnipresent, and immutable. This is the Sambhoga Kāya which is in a state of perfect bliss.

"Buddha is the all-loving teacher assuming the shape of the beings whom he teaches. This is the Nirmāna Kāya, his apparitional body. "Buddha is the all-blessed dispensation, of religion. He is the spirit of the Sangha and the meaning of the commands which he has left us in his sacred word, the Dharma. This is the Dharma Kāya, the body of the most excellent law.

"If Buddha had not appeared to us as Gotama Sakyamuni, how could we have the sacred traditions of his doctrine? And if the generations "to come did not iave the sacred traditions preserved in the Sangha, how could they know anything of the great Sakyamuni? And neither we nor others would know anything about the most excellent truth which is eternal, omnipresent, and immutable.

"Let us then keep sacred and revere the traditions; let us keep sacred the memory of Gotama Sakyamuni, so that people may find the truth; for he whose spiritual eye is open will discover it, and it is the same to every one who possesses the comprehension of a Buddha to recognize it and to expound it." 254